ZOOPHYTES. 375 



births ! vrhat deaths ! are every hour going on in these 

 unruffled wells, beneath the brown shadow of the um- 

 brageous oarweed, or over the waving slopes of the 

 bright green Ulva, or among the feathery branches 

 of the crimson Ceramium ! 



I have just been examining some of these rock- 

 wells, and have rifled them of not a few of their living- 

 treasures, bringing home the opima spolia* that you 

 may share with me in the enjoyment of examining 

 them. 



The Zoophytes are here in their glory. Such places 

 as those I speak of are the very metropolis of the 

 zoophytic nation. Look at this great leaf of the fin- 

 gered Tangle : see how its broad olive-brown expanse 

 ■ is covered with tinj"- forests of white branching threads, 

 which spread and spread till they run off into the fin- 

 gers of the much split leaf ; and not only on one side, 

 for the under surface is as densely clad with the shaggy 

 burden as the upper ; the smooth leathery tissue being 

 covered with a network of creeping roots, branching 

 and anastomosing everywhere, like the railways on 

 Bradshaw's map. 



This double forest is wholly composed of a single 

 species, called Laomedea geniculata ; nay, I believe it 

 is but one single individual. That is to say, the whole 

 of these multitudinous ramified threads and stems, with 

 their innumerable polypes, have all extended by 

 gradual though rapid growth from a single germ, and 

 all are connected even now, so that a common life pei'- 

 vades the whole. But we will look awhile at it in detail 

 till we have mastered its external features, and then 

 1 will tell you something of its history and economy. 

 * Rich spoils. 



